


This is (not) the End

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apocalypse/End of the World AU.  Set about ten years after the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is (not) the End

Thick ash lays on the cobblestone streets, and the air is unnaturally still, the ruined buildings holding in their breath, the sky tinged orange and streaked with red, the trees a too-grey green. The two men walk down the street, over the rubble that has spilled from the nearby structures, their footprints stark on the ground until the breeze sweeps it away.

The air is chill, and the clothes they are wearing are threadbare in places, patched in others. The taller man has his arms crossed snugly in front of him, a slight limp as he attempts to fold himself in against the wind, but the other man, with the darker, unkempt hair, does not seem to notice the temperature. He walks with a purpose, his eyes relentlessly scanning the surrounding area.

Wild dogs roam the streets at night, as well as the far more dangerous predator—man, wild scavengers who have given up the pretence of society and pursue only their own continued survival. Ammunition has mostly been depleted, or is still hidden away in stockpiles on military outposts, the army's last attempt to force some semblance of order on a world given to chaos.

From somewhere in the distance, a woman (or man, or almost-beast) keens high and long and loud. This is the third night the sound has started at sunset (or near sunset, as the fog and ash and subtle darkness in a burning sky make such distinctions blend and blur), but the men keep walking. Some people (or animals or things) are too far gone to be helped, now something once hard-learned that has become instinctual and obvious.

They do what they can. They have traveled what-was-once-Europe and back again, searching for a place a little better off than where they've left behind, but by the time they reached what-once-was-Italy they knew no Paradise could still exist. They traveled North and South, they managed a ride to the Greek Islands and left soon after, they traveled East and traveled back, and finally they came home to England, but still they move, restlessly, relentlessly.

Cities blur—fallen buildings, nature reclaiming land once taken from her—the old landmarks are useless, they become City of the Tower, City of the South River, City of the Plague, City of Gypsies.

Somewhere, _somewhere, they say,_ lies the _City of Fortune._

It goes by old names, too: City of Camelot, The White City, Avalon, Lyonesse, Thule.

The shorter man, with the dark unkempt hair, knows these places do not exist, but he, for once in his life, is silent. He is not ready to settle in this ashy, quiet, fallen land, and as long as they are to travel aimlessly, it does not hurt to give whatever they pretend to seek a name.

Perhaps, long ago, it would go against his nature to let such folly continue its perpetuation, but it has been years since the world has fallen into suffocating silence, before fire fell from the sky and the plague swept the land. It becomes easier to give in to folly and flights of fancy when those who depend upon him find him lacking an answer or a solution, find him silent and slack jawed and staring at the sky as the land burned and the world was consumed in her mouth.

His hair is streaked with grey, but his hands are firm and sturdy when they need to be, and he will lead them to wherever they wish to go—Avalon or the City of the Queen.

They sent the Royal Family to safety (they said), but the stories differ there—if they died in the tremors that followed, in the plague, in the tidal waves or simple marauders, or if they made it out, alive, if even now she sits in The White City and awaits the loyal to find her.

(He knows they will not find her. He does not care.)

The tall man with the slight limp no longer overthinks such matters. He rolls destinations on his tongue like foreign food, a new and thrilling taste he is unaccustomed to, but he follows Holmes (of course, Holmes, who else but Holmes, Holmes with the grey-black hair that still refuses to settle, with the eyes that will never stop observing and deciding, Holmes) because it is Holmes that leads.

(Watson would follow Holmes anywhere and everywhere, and has.)

The keening sound grows louder, and Watson uncrosses his arms and tangles a hand with Holmes'.

"We should get back to the others," he says.

 _Others._ Their ragtag group who follow them, some new, some not. Lestrade and Clarky are still among them. Mrs. Hudson they left in France years ago. They do not know if she is alive, but they choose to believe she is. Gregson fell in Greece almost four years ago. Others have fallen, or left to join others, or settled (for a moment at least), and still more have come to take their place.

They don't know where they're going, but none of them want to stop quite yet.

 _A little farther._

Lyonesse is somewhere out there.

I'm trying to find my sister.

I lived here, once. There are too many faces I can't forget.

I don't know how to be still anymore.

"They'll keep a little longer," Holmes says. "Lestrade will keep them in hand for now."

Lestrade, who lost his wife within the first six months, who Clarky forced along, almost suicidal, almost giving up.

Lestrade, who has grown old along with all the rest of them, who has chosen not to give up, who has proven his worth over.

"You know where we are," Watson says. He doesn't pose it as a question—after all this time, he still knows the way Holmes tips his head, the way he narrows his eyes slightly.

Holmes is silent as they keep walking, and Watson allows him his secret, following willingly as always. His thoughts stray to looking for a new cane—his last lost when he broke it over a brute's head to save a woman's life, or at the very least her virtue. He wishes, vainly, for the feel of his gun, but that has been long lost. Perhaps, he thinks, they can try to raid a military post. Dangerous, yes, but so very worth the risk…

He's jerked from his thoughts when Holmes unexpectedly speeds up, almost causing Watson to stumble, as their hands are still linked in one another.

"Holmes—" he says, irritated, and then falls silent, confused. Something about this place—

They turn another corner, and Watson is sure he is gaping, because the buildings may be so much ruined stone but he recognizes the way street intersects with street, the shadow of the buildings that once stood, and he can imagine arches and windows that once shone in sunlight.

"Welcome home," Holmes says softly, his voice low as he looks down what, almost a decade ago, was their street.

"How did you—" Watson says, an old habit he has not lost after all these years— _How did you find your way in all the rubble? How did you know where we were? How do you manage things no one else can?_ "Why?" he asks instead, a more important question with a more important answer.

Holmes stays silent, although he tugs Watson's hand and brings him farther down the street, until they're standing outside what was once their building.

It's too dangerous to go inside—if it's still uncollapsed, there might very well be people nesting there, and the light has given way to too much darkness—they should have turned back, by now, they should have rejoined the others, they should have—

"I don't miss it," Watson says fiercely. A lie, of course, but his hand is tight around Holmes' as if he will never let it go.

The unspoken meaning: _I don't miss it, because it gave me you._

"My loyal Boswell," Holmes says, but his voice is still pitched low, and his mouth is twisted into something resembling a grimace.

"Why did you bring us here?" Watson hisses, because he cannot stand the play of light and shadow on Holmes' face, cannot stand the ill masked pain, the way the muscles tighten and twist underneath his skin.

"I lead," he says. The words are simple, and Watson can no longer pretend the weight away from Holmes' shoulders, the grey hairs, the scars that line their bodies.

He can't pretend, so instead he steps forward, dropping Holmes' hand and twisting his fingers tightly into Holmes' hair, grabbing Holmes' back with his other hand and pulling his hard against him. When he kisses him, it's not soft and it's not tender. He bites Holmes' bottom lip too tight, and scrapes his nails too deep along Holmes' back, and pulls his hair too hard.

Holmes melts into incoherent whimpers.

"Please," he says (begs), _"Please."_

Watson backs him up against the nearest wall (unstable, dangerous, who the hell cares) and ravages his mouth, _too much too fast, fingers on too many places, can't keep up, can't—_

Watson's hand slips down to the front of Holmes' trousers, and Holmes gasps, "No, Watson, not here—"

—and Watson does not listen.

He bites down on Holmes' neck until he's a mewling mess and then lathes the skin with his tongue, he grabs Holmes' wrists in one of his hands and forces them above Holmes' head, licking and tasting until Holmes is writhing and incoherent, hips bucking up of their own accord.

"I don't miss it," he repeats, voice firm in Holmes' ear as Holmes shatters around him, and then he's fumbled through the fastens of Holmes' trousers and is holding him snug in his hand, _too snug too fast too much—_

He knows Holmes' body as well as Holmes, with his memory and observations and insights, knows Watson's—they know each other too well for any formality, but they usually move comfortably, at a measured pace that brings them both to climax, familiar and benign.

Watson is shattering Holmes in ways Holmes had no notion he was capable of doing. The solid wall behind Holmes is hard against his back, and Watson is doing his best to refute gentleness, he is taking possession of Holmes in the most basic way, forcing Holmes to relinquish control, to—just this once—not lead.

When Watson brings him to completion, Holmes cannot stop the tears from sliding down his face as he buries his face in Watson's chest and Watson holds him, Holmes trembling.

They're silent for a long while. Somewhere in the distance something howls into the night (can they see the moon through the fog, through the muted night?)

"We should return to the others," Holmes says at last, pulling back and wiping his cheeks roughly on his sleeve. He covers himself.

Watson isn't hard, and then both know it, but Watson does not care and Holmes…

Watson cranes his ears, because Holmes, before they turn back, brushes his fingertips softly across ravaged stone and whispers, _"The White City."_

 

_...Finis..._


End file.
